When the gates first opened on Latolan some eight hundred years ago, the only thing the first explorers found were the drunken ruins of a civilization at least a thousand years dead. The only major settlement is Tomar, a single, 80 mile wide city-state containing a number of prestigious universities and private schools, The Grand Tomar Library, and the main hall of several technical and magical guilds. The kaleidoscopic native population is joined by the seasonal residents of Starlight Vale, off-world wealth and nobility with the disposable income to keep a second estate in the valleys between the peaks of the Starlight Mountains.
Apart from a number of smaller settlements and outposts peppered haphazardly across the backroads–so referred to for the impression of ancient roads and ruins that must have at one point criss-crossed a mighty nation–much of Latolan remains unmapped and unsettled. This is not for lack of trying, but voyages into virgin territory return more bodies than answers.
A series of shorts exploring this world and a handful of its inhabitants.

Two worldviews butt heads when a worlds-renowned anthropologist returns from a summer in the field with a few interesting new takes on the human condition...no matter that he's the furthest thing from human himself.

She's pretty in her petticoats, but, according a man who's a little bit frightening himself, she's a creature to be feared. But is it jealously that drives his warning? A direct sequel to "A Question of Culture."

Language is a fickle thing, and, as doctorate candidate in that very field, she knows this well. It won't stop her, however, from helping a man to use it to connect to a family that he doesn't really fit into.